The Classic Liberal Blog

The Progressives are out to squash everything that doesn't fit directly with their narrow, pointy-headed opinions ... and they're coming after us from a wide-range of angles.  Every blog, website and search engine is under attack, but if you're anywhere on the right-side of the political scale, you are Enemy #1!

The tyrants at the self-described progressive "research" center dedicated to "monitoring" conservative U.S. media, recently held a discussion panel consisting of extremist, left-wing radicals, from the Southern Poverty Law Center, America’s Voice, NARAL Pro-Choice America, the National Council of La Raza, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights - all who strongly desire to control speech!

This, really, is best for you to see for yourself.

WARNING: This video is real.  These people are extreme left-wing tyrants, openly planning suppression of speech, and thus your mind, to prevent you (or anyone else) from challenging the extreme-radical agenda of progressives. And make no mistake about it.  Their wish to subvert free speech is a dangerous and un-American ploy, intended to carry out no less than the enabling of America's destruction.

Get the Flash Player to see the wordTube Media Player.

H/T Conservative Heritage Times!

Who is Media Matters?  They're part of George Soros and his Open Society Institute, also heavily funded by the radical Tides Foundation.  For a detailed report, please read Media Matters for America (MMA).

The Coming Blog Censorship:

The Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, and the rest of the Leviathan’s house organs are still suffering from "shock and awe," over the success and growth of the Internet.  Unable to learn, grow, and adapt their business models to this new reality, these government propaganda machines who on the verge of bankruptcy (just like the government), are demanding they too be subsidized by the taxpayers.

So far, not receiving life-support via the taxpayers, the Associated Press and their "long history of suing over quotations from their articles," is going after people for "having the audacity to link to their stories."  Nevermind that the act of linking and quoting stories falls in line with the fair use exemption clause of copyright law, as TechCrunch reports, they want to sue you anyway!

The A.P. doesn’t get to make it’s own rules around how its content is used, if those rules are stricter than the law allows. So even thought they say they are making these new guidelines in the spirit of cooperation, it’s clear that, like the RIAA and MPAA, they are trying to claw their way to a set of property rights that don’t exist today and that they are not legally entitled to. And like the RIAA and MPAA, this is done to protect a dying business model - paid content.

So here’s our new policy on A.P. stories: they don’t exist. We don’t see them, we don’t quote them, we don’t link to them. They’re banned until they abandon this new strategy, and I encourage others to do the same until they back down from these ridiculous attempts to stop the spread of information around the Internet.

I agree!  The Associated Press is officially banned from The Classic Liberal Blog too!

Of course, the State can't stand the Internet!  The growth of "unofficial thinking," made available via the Internet, threatens their ability to control the news cycle while trumpeting the State's propaganda.  Now that their beloved house organs are on the verge of death, the always-in-reaction-mode-State, is working on devising new ways to subvert free speech by wrecking the Internet.

For example, Judge Richard Posner has a plan to "save" the State Run Media. Posner thinks the State should:

[Expand] copyright law to bar online access to copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent, or to bar linking to or paraphrasing copyrighted materials without the copyright holder's consent.

Yes, he thinks "linking" should be illegal!  That's right!  No more "linky-love."  (The above was quoted from Posner's blog, but since he doesn't like links, I'm not linking to him).  I love Pamela Geller's response to Posner's outrageous plan to Outlaw Blogging:

... what about all the stories newspapers steal from the bloggers. Big media too. This happens all the time. Where is out [sic] restitution?

The State & Progressives Really Hate Blogs:

Individuals, expressing their own ideas and thoughts via blogging, has proven a serious threat to the State-controlled media, and in particular, the progressive agenda.  Ideas and free-thought, being the antithesis of their aim to control, is the ultimate weapon against them!  The tyranny of progressivism cannot win in the "arena of ideas," so to fight back, they're relentlessly working to squash any and all opposing views.

Today, progressives are engaged in the most sustained attack on free speech since the 1798 Alien and Sedition Acts.  Everyone, including constituents on the Left, should stubbornly resist this abusive attack on free speech.  Afterall, the freedom to think and speak freely is one of the most fundamental rights of people.

Bloggers should be especially concerned.  Because the State has looked for ways to regulate blogs since their advent.  The McCain-Feingold Campaign Finance Reform Act, passed in 2002 (thanks to overwhelming support by Democrats), has severely stifled free political speech, with its 300 pages of bizarre rules and regulations, it makes running for office, contributing to a candidate (or cause), or even advocating without an attorney potentially catastrophic.

As the Federal Elections Committee (FEC) were writing the specific rules to inact McCain-Feingold, it narrowly exempted the Internet with a 4-2 vote (3 Republicans in favor, 2 Democrats against).  But the progressives, who were joined by both Sens. John McCain and Russ Feingold, weren't happy with this, and thus sued the FEC, claiming it made the Internet a giant "loophole."  A federal judge (of course) ruled in their favor, so technically speaking, blogs fall under McCain-Feingold rules now.

Note: Yes, that John McCain.  The so-called "conservative" Republican presidential candidate, who lost to Barack Obama last year.  How different are the 2 monopoly parties again?

The (not-so) funny thing is ... McCain-Feingold, while ruthlessly fighting to regulate blogs, protects their beloved Newspaper Fiefdom from the same regulations.

Luckily, FEC Commissioner Bradley Smith (R) blew the whistle in an interview with CNET, prompting bloggers to mobilize in opposition, causing a handful of prominent members of Congress, including Sen. Harry Reid (D) and Rep. John Conyers (D), who warned the FEC not to aggressively persue blogs.

And this is far from over ... You already heard what Soros' tyrants had to say in the video above, now add the following reported by WorldNetDaily:

Julius Genachowski, an Obama friend from Harvard Law School and the mastermind behind Obama's online fundraising machine, is an ardent supporter of so-called "net neutrality" regulations, perceived by O'Leary as a first step toward "Fairness Doctrine"-style regulations on content for the Internet. Genachowski would have government decide what content Internet operators and network owners must provide.

Then there's the following from The Seattle Times, which I reported on last November in Blogger Beware:

State regulators are wondering whether online political activism amounts to lobbying, which could force Web-based activists to publicly detail their finances.

In a collision of 21st-century media and 1970s political reforms, the inquiry hints at a showdown over press freedoms for bloggers, whose self-published journals can shift among news reporting, opinion writing, political organizing and campaign fundraising.

"One of the issues was the grass-roots involvement, in terms of prompting individuals, in a call to action, to contact legislators, to send in letters," said Doug Ellis, the PDC's assistant director.

Yep!  Grass-roots involvement, is an "issue" for the State.  They don't like it at all.  Not even a little bit.  Remember, California State Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D) considers "we the people" terrorists!

The Republicans were essentially threatened and terrorized against voting for revenue. Now [some] are facing recalls. They operate under a terrorist threat: "You vote for [higher taxes] and your career is over." I don't know why we allow that kind of terrorism to exist.

How much longer do we have left, before the god-king Obama decides to name his Blog Czar?

The First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Notice that the First Amendment doesn't give people the right to free speech, religion, the press, etc. In fact, a careful review of our Constitution, will show you nothing in it gives "we the people" any rights at all!  What it does instead, is operate as a restriction on the interference of our rights.

Our Constitution created a federal government not to create rights, but to protect rights - rights that pre-exist both the government and the Constitution.  Our Founder's added the first 10 amendments, or Bill of Rights, not to enumerate the people's rights, but instead, to ensure that the government didn't use "the power to protect rights" to infringe upon or destroy our natural, God-given rights.

Notice too, our First Amendment restricts Congress (our elected representatives).  This is important, because our entire Constitution operates on the implicit acknowledgment that democracy is no guarantee of freedom, but is in fact, a tremendous threat to freedom!  This is the reason our Founder's established a republic in America, not a democracy.

As James Madison said concerning a Bill of Rights:

My own opinion has always been in favor of a bill of rights; provided that it be so framed as not to imply powers not meant to be included in the enumeration ... I have favored it because I suppose it might be of use, and if properly executed could not be of disservice.

Madison, along with the rest of our Founders, accomplished a brilliant feat in writing our Bill of Rights.  They kept the Declaration of Independence as our philosophical statement of rights, thereby not having the amendments serve as a specific enumeration of rights, nor could the amendments be interpreted to increase the powers of the government beyond it's Constitutionally enumerated powers.

Note: Unfortunatley, they never imagined the evil ruthlessness of our lawyers and legal system today.

Most importantly, our Bill of Rights provides the fundamental knowledge to all citizens that our rights are natural, giving "we the people" all reason to defend our liberty with all our might!

In Summary:

Anyone opposed to free speech is a devious slug.  They may claim to be for freedom of speech, but just not "that" kind of speech.  The enemies of free speech cloak their calculated evils in lies of the shrewdest kind, claiming it's "for the good" of [said favored group, nation or war], but only desire control.  Make no mistake about it, any and all attempts to control people's speech, is an attempt to control their lives!

There are no "shades" of free speech either.  Like virginity, you either have it or you don't.   Even attacks on the most vulgar and hateful of speech, relinquish speech to anything but free.

And yes, contrary to popular belief, freedom of speech includes the right to yell "fire" in a crowded room.  Certainly there should be consequences for doing this without an actual threat of fire, but your freedom of speech pre-exists any said government "right" to stop you from speaking aloud first.

Freedom of speech is incompatible with both Big Government and progressivism.  Today's system of tyrannical campaign laws, bizarre intellectual property laws, and abusive copyright laws (which protect the State organs of propaganda), has left us in a world whereby "the will of the people" is now almost exclusively manufactured by our rulers.

Bloggers, it's time we take our country back!

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UPDATE: Judge Sonia Sotomayor (god-king Obama's pick for the Supreme Court), recently ruled that a teenager's blog post created "foreseeable risk of substantial disruption."  As NBC reports:

Avery Doninger was disqualified from running for school government at Lewis S. Mills High School in Burlington after she posted something on her blog, referring to the superintendent and other officials as "douche bags" because they canceled a battle of the bands she had helped to organize.

The case went to court and in March 2008, Sotomayor was on a panel that heard Doninger’s mother’s appeal alleging her daughter’s free speech and other rights were violated. Her mother wanted to prevent the school from barring her daughter from running.

In their opinion, the judges said they were “sympathetic" to her disappointment at being disqualified from running for Senior Class Secretary and acknowledged her belief that in this case, “the punishment did not fit the crime.”

However, the judges decided they were not called upon to determine if school officials acted wisely.

“The continual expansion of the authority of school officials over student speech teaches a foul lesson to these future citizens,” Jonathan Turley, a law professor at George Washington University, told the New Britain Herald. “I would prefer some obnoxious speech [rather] than teaching students that they must please government officials if they want special benefits or opportunities.”

H/T Feed Your ADHD!